Mission Springs Camps and Conference Center
Mission Springs is a year-round conference center in the Santa Cruz Mountains. During the school year, we also run an Outdoor Education program for area schools, and during the summer, we facilitate Frontier Ranch, a youth camp for 4th-9th graders.
Our mission is to provide a special place, free of distractions, where people can feel the presence of our Lord and leave with a renewed spirit and closer relationship with Christ and their fellow believers.
The centrality of the Scriptures, the Old and New Testament, as the authoritative Word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine and conduct. We believe it is essential to the life of the Church that it be a company of people who want, above all else, their lives to be shaped by the powerful and living Word of God. The alternative is clear. Not to be shaped by the Word is to be shaped by the world.
The necessity of the new birth for entrance into God’s kingdom, and the importance of continuing growth in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ for sound spiritual health. Jesus said, "Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). He also said, "If you continue in my work, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:31-32).
The Church as a fellowship of believers, characterized by mutual participation in and sharing of the new life in Christ. Membership is by confession of personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. It is open to all believers. Consideration of class or race, education or pedigree, wealth or prestige do not enter. Uniformity in creedal details is not expected. What is required is that one be "born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3).
The ministry of the Holy Spirit, who with the Father and the Son calls the Church into being, empowers its witness, guides its mission, and supplies the gifts needed by the Church and its members to exalt Christ.
The reality of freedom in Christ, who delivers us from the power of sin and moves us by his grace into a whole new experience of obedience and life. This freedom creates an ecclesiastical climate which allows for differences of opinion in matters of interpretation, doctrine, and practice within the context of biblical guidelines and historical Christianity. Such freedom "is to be distinguished from the individualism that disregards the centrality of the Word of God and the mutual responsibilities and disciplines of the spiritual community" (Preamble to the Constitution).
Affirmations like these are not to be taken as creedal statements. They are rather to be understood as true and valid descriptions of what we believe and cherish as they continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of God, awaiting that day when "the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever"
(Revelation 11:15).
